All Chapters of Rejected By My Mate,Claimed By His Rival: Chapter 21 - Chapter 23

Damon did not move aside. He stood in the doorway looking at her like he had known she would come. The light from his room cut across Aria’s face. Behind her the house was quiet. Kael’s door at the far end of the corridor remained closed. The three-day deadline sat between all of them like a held breath. “Come in,” Damon said. Aria stepped inside. He closed the door without touching her. The room smelled of him — clean skin, faint cedar, the residual heat of someone who did not sleep much. She stood near the centre of the space and waited. Her pulse was already high in her throat. The unfinished sentence from the night before had been circling in her head for hours, heavier with every loop. Damon walked to the small table near the window, poured two fingers of something dark into a glass, and did not offer her any. He turned and leaned against the table, studying her with that same restless intensity she had seen in the study. “Kael is not as finished with you as he pretends,” he

Aria sat on the edge of the bed with the phone still in her hand, the words burning into her. Lila has submitted an updated distress report to the Council tonight. They are reviewing whether the private hour should be suspended before the chambers meeting. You have less time than you think. No name. No signature. Just the threat and the sudden drop in her stomach. Her hands were still shaking from the hallway fight. She locked the screen hard, threw the phone onto the pillow, and pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes until it hurt. Everything from the last hour sat on her chest at once — Kael admitting he had gone behind her back to the Council, Damon claiming her in front of him like she was already his, and now this. The private hour wasn’t safe until chambers anymore. It might not even last the night. The knock came soft, but she still flinched. She opened the door knowing exactly who it was. Damon stood there in the same clothes, eyes dark, jaw tight. He looked at her f